


This Moment

by feliciacraft



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Grief, Grief/Mourning, season 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 17:02:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7231051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feliciacraft/pseuds/feliciacraft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A quiet moment after what felt like the end of the world. A moment full of Tara, yet without.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Moment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Velvetwhip (Gabrielle)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gabrielle/gifts).



> Continuity: Following Season 6 “Grave”.

She would not be using a spell this time.

For comfort. To forget. As wish-fulfillment.

No.

She’d tried that. Didn’t work. Sought resurrection. Justice. Revenge. End of the world. With each escalation of despair the pain only gained a foothold or ten. Until, she foresaw, in that moment of clarity just before she collapsed in Xander’s arms, that, had the universe fallen away—her will be done, the pain would’ve prevailed.

No.

She leaned on her bedroom door until it clicked shut behind her (holding back her friends, their unvoiced concern etched in the lines of their faces, the silence deafening), and surveyed the dark room where a new beginning had so abruptly turned into the end.

_No._

Magic thrice denied, she waited for the urge to pass. She wanted to feel, to hurt. Welcomed the pain. Immersed her mind in it. Along with her passion. Her control. Her power. Her—essence. Complete surrender. Just soaking it in, and letting the overwhelming seize her and begin to—overwhelm. She would no longer resist its bind, unbreakable yet invisible to those unmarked by the gift of magic, the curse of power. But she could see the mystical evidence, the pulsating shadow that’d darkened her aura like a death shroud. An unnecessary reminder. The mark of one left behind.

Tara was gone. The world remained. And  _ she _ was alive.

They said tragedies came in threes. They weren’t wrong.

Death (breathe, Willow, breathe), as it turned out, was only experienced by the living. The dead, being dead, bled no more (small mercies). What was stolen from them, it fell to the rest of us to repay in grief. An untimely demise deserved a lifetime of remembrance. That was just. That was right. A life for a life.

So Willow fought it no more. It was the last of Tara—this pain, aside from the memories and what remained of their shattered lives stuffed hastily into silent drawers and behind closet doors by hands that meant well. She loved her friends—if she could still be said to love anything in this cruel world—but they could be so obtuse sometimes. Did they really think changing the bed sheets and removing photo frames and chachkies from Tara’s and her dresser would ease the loss of her love? The air was saturated with that artificial smell of laundry soap. What, did Buffy volunteer for chores and end up spilling the detergent or something? The gesture was—nice, and touching, and a slew of other good-intentioned words she couldn’t bother to recall at the moment, but didn’t they see? All they’d done was pack the place with ghosts 'til it was bursting at the seams. The ghost of Tara. The ghost of their love. The ghosts of things that had been, and would never be again.

(Breathe, Willow, breathe.)

Yet, as her fingers trailed along the comforter (the floral one she and Tara had picked out together when they’d first moved in, both googly-eyed and unable to stop giggling at the mall with the inside joke of two young lovers making their first “big” purchase as a couple), she did find, much to her surprise, a speck of a shred of a sliver of comfort. (Comfort, comforter, comfortest? Words were weird...all alliterative and arbitrary and absurd.)

Good thing, she thought, as she sank into the bed, stretched out like a starfish, burying her face in the pillow, that you didn’t need magic to pretend. Even in her exhaustion she was well aware of the nervous conversation taking place mere steps outside her bedroom door, whispers that were (undoubtedly) about her, hushed tones tinged with anxiety and more than a little fear (from which she derived a vague surge of satisfaction). Oh, let them wait. And speculate. And worry. (And Giles could polish his glasses ‘til he’d worn them right through for all she cared.) She had nothing but time ahead of her. She wanted this moment, right here, right now.

For this moment belonged to Tara.


End file.
